Nox Amicus

Today marks ten years since the darkest day of my adult life. I was unemployed with no prospects, deeply in debt, and freshly out of a relationship that toyed with my psychology in truly horrible ways. In one of the darkest moments of that day, there came an unexpected invitation from an unlikely friend. Today was the pivot point, the terminator between dark and light, the distinction between wishing and hoping. That friend and I agreed not to talk about the heavy things on our minds but to celebrate what we knew in those moments, and we saw “The Life of Pi” together. The end of the movie poses the question, “In both stories, the ship sinks, my family dies, and I suffer.” “So, which story do you prefer?” This was the point in my life where the idea of choosing our own narrative was formed and, in many ways, marks where I started to be reborn.

I was guided through that darkness by the help and love of some incredibly awesome souls, to whom I am always grateful. So today really isn’t sadness or angst — it’s deep appreciation. It’s all a matter of perspective. Or, to quote from the movie: “Above all, don’t lose hope.”

The story is my truth, but it may resonate for others as well.

My mother is now dead. Sounds cold and callous, I know – but I feel like a book has closed. She passed away on Monday morning, with family in attendance – by all accounts it was peaceful. I do wish her well on her journey – she didn’t ask for, or want, what this life provided her – and I forgive her based on that. I hold no malice toward her or her spirit. She did what she was capable of – she just wasn’t capable of what she was called upon to do.

My oldest memory is standing in the kitchen with my father – I couldn’t have been more than three years old – when he said to me “you’re mother is coming home from the hospital tomorrow, now we have to be good so she doesn’t get sick again”. My dad was looking for an ally – I know that – but my brain at the time crafted the scenario where aberrations in my behavior could send my mother away. This was when I still believed that there could be care, love, and nurturing found there. It was all up to me – I had to be “good”, to go along, to not make waves.

This informed every relationship I had up until four years ago. I fully admit that I was the one who’d held myself hostage with this emotional blackmail for almost all of my life. I subjugated any needs or wants I had in favor of either keeping my mother or her surrogate (whoever I was in a relationship with) happy. Naturally, I gravitated toward the worst kind of co-dependent relationships. I wasn’t allowed to have my needs met, so why not lock myself into a situation where it was impossible anyway. I lived my life governed by a fear of abandonment. To this day I’ll occasionally still find myself in that same, comfortable, apologetic mode. There’s nothing wrong with being contrite for something you might have done to offend someone – but when you end up with a nickname of “Sorry” because you say it all the time – that’s the sign of an unhealthy relationship.

Thankfully, for the most part, I’d broken that pattern after the last conscious time I’d seen my mother – in 2011. We still kept in touch for two more years – but in 2013, I walked away for good. The catalyst was trivial, but it was enough. Since then, I have tried to find myself in whole, compatible, nurturing, and non-destructive relationships with people who are genuinely self-aware, or at least on that path. Much like a substance abuser not associating with the “old crowd”, the new souls that tend to populate my life help me affirm that this is the way I want to live.

My spirituality gives me occasion to make a monthly vow to myself. This month I had chosen “Self-Determination” – and now during this time, my mother passes away. I feel as though a weight has been lifted, curtains opened, and skies clearing. I have made more choices in the past few days based on what “I” need than I can remember. It’s getting reflexive, and I think I’m on the right track.

There are going to be a lot of changes – some profound, some subtle, but I’m anxious to know what this life can be like lived on my own terms.

For the past few months I’ve been working on different areas of self-improvement. First was self-awareness, then self-discovery, and right now I’m in the middle of exercises in self-forgiveness. That can take on many forms, but it begins with understanding one’s need for forgiveness in the first place.

With time to reflect today, I returned to the Buddhist concept of Shenpa and decided I wanted to see what more I could read about it – because that Shenpa, or attachment, seems like it sits at the heart of my being too hard on myself. When I did a search today, I found an article published just this past Friday from Pena Chödrön – a Buddhist voice I respect very much. The timing and synergy suggested it was important to share this. Click here to read “How We Get Hooked and How We Get Unhooked“.

In a conversation a few weeks ago, the phrase “aspect of yourself” floated my way. My brain decided to slip down that rabbit hole, and realized that if you focus on an aspect of yourself – doesn’t that presuppose that you know yourself and your aspects – at least some of them? It was at that moment that a lot of things started to fall together.

This extends from the cloak I discussed in my last post. We wear cloaks to cover or protect ourselves – but, intentionally or not, they can sometimes mask who we really are. Wear a cloak long enough, you forget how to be naked.

I’ve been wrestling with “who am I?” for a few weeks now. I poked at it, meditated on it, and even looked up my favorite philosophers to re-frame the question. It wasn’t until I was walking through town one night that the realization struck me. I am Nox.

Before I continue, it should be noted that this only seems to be news to me. A most-trusted soul pointed out to me, in the midst of hell last year, that I was “more like Nox [years ago] than now”. There was also a lot of “who are you, really??” going on in 2012. It seems I was more lost than I realized – or was willing to hear.

So I’m Nox. Not just from the ‘kink’ perspective – but Nox is a guise I created specifically to give myself permission to be me, to want what I want, and to be worthy of it. My therapist pointed out some weeks ago that in the BDSM construct, as Nox I have permission to ‘be’ and want without fear of reprisal. Without fear of abandonment.

Obviously, this all flows from “don’t upset your mother”. It seems everything does. In the aftermath of that, I created a cloak where I would not upset my mother. I would stifle my needs or wants (tricky when you’re three years old), be unobtrusive, conciliatory… My sister used to call me Switzerland because I would be neutral and unoffending in everything. This was before my nickname became “sorry” for my predilection for apologizing. Don’t offend, don’t inconvenience, take a back seat, don’t step up. Be invisible and you won’t upset anyone. No one will go away.

This demureness was the opposite of what being a boy in the late 60s/early 70s was. I never really had the chance to be “a boy”; the rough and tumble, learn how to assert yourself, the stereotypical, western, societal male. I went so far afield from it that I never really developed a sense of assertiveness that would enable me to want or fight for anything.

As I grew, this cloak followed me – whether in grade-school afternoons spent with an abusive aunt, or in the first (and excruciatingly long) relationship I had. It wasn’t until my 33rd birthday that I finally started to break free from that whole cycle. Leaving my mother, my aunt, and girlfriend behind – I finally tried to move into adolescence – with disastrous results. I was sexually immature and inexperienced – I did not know “how” to be male.

I always sensed this, but never really dared acknowledge it until the subject of gender polarity in ritual came up recently. It dawned on me that when there are male/female characters in the songs I’ve written, I always identified with the female lyrics. This dovetailed nicely with the “lesbian sheep” analogy that was applied to me some months ago. Google that one if you haven’t heard it before.

I’ve been soft and nurturing my whole life – it was how I built value in my cloak. I would rarely let anyone do anything for me – whether it be massaging my shoulders, paying for lunch, or being sexually intimate. Sadly, it was rooted deep in my brain from a very young age that women don’t want sex, so it was unfathomable that a partner would ever actually ‘want’ to be sexual with me. My relationship role was to be unobtrusive, don’t inconvenience anyone – don’t act unless specifically urged to.

Fast forward to last year, before my worlds crumbled, I was standing in the shower and got a cold chill on the back of my neck and the name Artemis was stamped in my brain. I never understood why, but took it as something to be mindful of. The virginal huntress. Sure – that seemed to fit.

But it was far deeper than I could have suspected.

I think this past weekend was the first time I’d attended rituals on consecutive days. One was our normal one, but another was one where Artemis and Apollo were being called. What was interesting was that Herne was involved in the first ritual this weekend. I’d never worked with Herne before – I’d become very familiar with Manannán, but Herne was new to me.

It turns out that last minute switch from Manannán to Herne was fortuitous. I had the opportunity to commune with Herne, to taste his energy and to become comfortable with him. I understood “male” in a different way than I had through Manannán. I knew Manannán, and valued his goblet of truth – but as a sea god, he was fluid. Herne was earth. Solid. This was new for me.

The next night, I thought I was meeting Artemis for the first time. It turns out though that she was always there – from my earliest days, hers was that energy that moved with me and protected me. She was my sister, my protectress.

Then something amazing happened.

Apollo put his hand on my shoulder, and I feel like a baton was passed. Artemis passed me to her brother to help me the rest of the way on my journey. Kali, Pele, and Brighid are all prominent – as they have needed to be. But Apollo nodded to Herne and I felt a coming of age – and a step toward gender clarity.

I am allowed to be a man.

There it is. There is the block I’ve had for 47 years. I’m not beyond it, but I know what it is. The work now is putting the pieces together.

I don’t want to lose my nurturing nature, I don’t want to stop being empathetic. I treasure the lessons learned from my Yin – but I need to explore my Yang. That could get very interesting.

Above all though, I want to immerse myself in the balance. I think that the trials of all of those years give me a unique perspective. If I can effectively blend the masculine and feminine parts of myself, I think I can really be someone I can be proud of!

… and the adventure continues.

The air is clearing, the sun is starting to peek its head out of the haze, and I’m taking some time to catch my breath. It’s been a long four years in the land of Noxiousness – but the time has come to turn corners and turn pages – and to take stock of where I’ve been.

I’ve learned a great deal about myself in the past eight months. That’s significant only because I thought all of these recently learned lessons were already behind me. Apparently there’s some kind of bizarre life crash-course where, while you have the basis for the things you need to know, you have to prove you can implement it.

I didn’t figure this out until the last three months – when school prompted me to do the same thing. The senior project cycle was a series of courses that required you to take all of the things you’d learned in the core curriculum and actually make them work in the real world. That’s probably great when you’re 22 and living on campus and school can be your only focus. But when you have family stresses, friends, a full time job, a part-time business, three bands, a CD project, and a novel in progress – there comes a time to make some tough choices. One of the bands is gone, the part-time business is on hiatus, and work has slowed to a crawl on both the CD and book. In many ways, I felt like I was in command of a starship – “diverting auxiliary power to the shields captain!!” – problem was, no one taught me how to run a starship.

I threw a lot of elements in my life to auto-pilot… something that was actually recommended to me by a dear friend when this whole school thing began. I actually thought that I could follow my own path, offer explanations when necessary, and have everything be stable on the other side. I thought I could retreat and come back out. It’s a trend of mine – much like a turtle, I crawl into a shell and poke my head back out every now and then. It’s an established pattern that might not work for everyone, but sometimes it’s what I’ve needed to do.

But then there come the expectations. We all do it. We base our perception of other people on what we would like them to be – we interact with them that way – and as long as they come close to our expectation, we’re fine. It’s like some fantasy quantum bubble ‘you have enough of what I need, just don’t pop the bubble!’ I’ve had my bubble burst several times in the past year – as recently as last week in fact. I’ve regrettably burst my share of bubbles too. It sucks, and there’s pain, and there’s loss – and there shouldn’t be… but there has to be. It’s times like these that emotions suck.

So now I look out over the landscape, and I periodically wave to and wave back at friends… but that’s all. For now, I think it’s best to just sit quietly and see what kind of equilibrium forms and how much my ‘life’ can recover from the hell and isolation I put it through.

I feel I should say that I’m not fishing for comments. I really don’t expect many, if any, people to read this. I just really wanted to put a mile-marker in the ground to keep track of where I am and where I’m going. If you happened upon this though, thank you for reading!!

I wish you health and peace!!

There have been a lot of things swirling in the life of Nox in the past six months. Dickens wrote about the best of times and the worst of times – and it’s true – nothing is absolute. There have been some truly bleak moments in the past few months, but sprinkled in the darkness have been warming rays of light – just enough to provide some assurance that there is life outside the catacombs.

I’ve felt like I’ve been in a nexus of very dark tunnels, stretching like spokes in different directions. When I would take a step in one direction, I would sense that salvation lay in a different one – in the end, I realize the best I’ve been able to do is walk around in circles.

I had some time last weekend to try to regain some perspective. There’s nothing like fifteen hours in a car to give your mind the freedom it needs to wander, and wander it did. In the end, I came to the simple realization that there are some things you cannot change.

We touch souls every day – with every smile, every action, every word, and every silence we help to color in the lines of someone else’s picture, even as we’re coloring our own. We learn, we absorb, we shape, and we grow. But it isn’t just what we do or don’t do, how we’re perceived is just as important in shaping our reality. We all want to be the warming rays of light – but there are times when we simply can’t help but be each other’s tunnels. It all comes back to balance.

I have found, for me, that the path out of my tunnel lies in accepting myself. Finally acknowledging that I cannot be all things to all people and that I cannot always adequately balance what I need with what everyone around me needs. Lastly, accepting the flaws in myself that dictate that I simply can’t save everyone.

This metaphor took on a tragic truth this week. While I was sitting in my apartment on Thursday, closing out my work day, I heard a pop and saw a flash of light. When I went down the stairs I saw the workers who had been installing the new roof milling around. One of them was prone on the ground, and there was an aluminum ladder whose base was in flames. I grabbed my fire extinguisher and called 911 – but the gentleman on the ground didn’t make it.

I’ve been wrestling with that all night last night and all day today. As I recounted the incident to the investigators today I came to the realization that there simply wasn’t any more I could have done. The worker was probably gone when the ladder touched the power line. Still… I want there to have been more I could do, I wanted him to go home to his family. Just trying to get by in the world shouldn’t lead to that.

Acceptance is hard. Acceptance of an unwanted outcome, acceptance of our own limitations and frailties, and even acceptance of one another and the darkness and light we all carry with us. The best we can manage sometimes is just trying to understand, and having faith that the sun will warm us once again.

Wishing you peace and warm rays of light to guide you from your tunnels.

From time to time I’ll post a status update that says I found a dime. Many of you know the significance, but not everyone – so here’s why dimes are such a big deal.

Shortly after my father passed away in November 2001, I started to find dimes – in parking lots, on the floor in work, under seat cushions, in washing machines and dryers, on the sidewalk – pretty much everywhere. Not pennies, not assorted change – dimes. There were so many of them I thought there had to be a reason, so I started to keep them.

At one point I was talking to my sister Katie, explaining this to her and she said with all the certainty in the world – “They’re from Daddy”. I thought about it, and while I’m not aware of anything special about dimes for him – I somehow knew she was right.

Ever since then, whenever I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be – or if I’m on my way somewhere that he would approve of – a dime appears. If I don’t find one for a while, I get to feeling that I’m just not on the right track and stop and reevaluate. Once I’m moving again, inevitably there’ll be a dime.

I still have all those dimes. If I get them in change, I have no problem spending them – but the ones I find, I keep. Judging my the size and weight of the bottle I keep them in, I probably have well over 1500 dimes.

I never wish they were quarters, or dollars, or anything else. My only wish is that I keep finding them.